Mackenzie Browning
Mackenzie Browning(Formerly 'Abbott) is a fictional character on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, introduced in 1999 as a part of the new teen scene and revealed to be a granddaughter of the wealthy Katherine Chancellor. Casting Ashley Bashioum, the actress that played the role for the longest duration, was the very first actress to tackle the role. The character premiered on March 18, 1999.[http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/recaps/1999/990315.php The Young and the Restless recap (March 18, 1999) - Soapcentral.com] While battling mononucleosis, the actress was temporarily replaced by Nicole Tarantini in 2001. In early 2002, Bashioum was not able to make an agreement with the show's producers and wanted to pursue a career in medicine.[http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/news/2002/0114-bashioum.php The Young and the Restless news: Bashioum out as Mackenzie (January 10, 2002) - Soapcentral.com] She last aired as Mac on February 19, 2002. Kelly Kruger was cast as the second Mac and she took over the role on the very next day, February 20, 2002.[http://tvmegasite.net/day/yr/transcripts/older/2002/yr-trans-02-19-02.htm The Young and the Restless transcript (February 20, 2002) - tvmegasite.net] The character was written out next year, and Kruger last aired as Mac on July 1, 2003.[http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/recaps/2003/030630.php The Young and the Restless recap (July 1, 2003) - Soapcentral.com] Bashioum agreed to return to the show in early 2004, and was back on April 2, 2004,[http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/recaps/2004/040329.php The Young and the Restless recap (April 2, 2004) - Soapcentral.com] but was fired the next year. The producers explained their move as necessary because Bashioum's school schedule was getting in the way.[http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/news/2005/0228-bashioum_kimsey.php The Young and the Restless news: Bashioum out as Y&R recasts Mac (February 23, 2005) - Soapcentral.com] Bashioum last aired on March 10, 2005. The role was immediately recast with Rachel Kimsey, who is also the last actress to play the role to date. The surprising recast had a big backlash, as the viewers had trouble adjusting to a new version of Mac and were surprised by the ousting of the original actress.[http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/news/2006/0320-kimsey.php The Young and the Restless news: Kimsey Booted as Y&R's Mac (March 20, 2006) - Soapcentral.com] Kimsey played the role from March 25, 2005[http://tvmegasite.net/day/yr/transcripts/older/2005/yr-trans-03-24-05.shtml The Young and the Restless transcript (March 25, 2005) - tvmegasite.net] to May 17, 2006.[http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/recaps/2006/060515.php The Young and the Restless recap (May 17, 2006) - Soapcentral.com] The fourth actress to play the role will be Clementine Ford, as of April 1, 2009.Clementine Ford is the new Mac, TvGuide Character's background Mackenzie meets Katherine Chancellor (Jeanne Cooper) when they are both staying at the Genoa City homeless shelter and they become friends. Mac had run away from St. Louis and her mother Amanda Browning (Denice Duff) and stepfather Ralph Hunnicutt. Later, Mac and Kay are equally shocked to learn that they are long-lost grandmother and granddaughter. They leave the homeless shelter with another friend, Birdie (Vernee Watson-Johnson), and return to the Chancellor Estate together to face new co-owner Jill Abbott (Jess Walton). Jill's teenage son, Billy Abbott (David Tom) then returns to Genoa City. The two do not get off on the right foot as Billy throws a party in his mother's absence to get back at her for grounding him. Mac is almost arrested and accused of theft. She gets out of both with the help of attorney John Silva (John Castellanos) and Billy's persuasion with Jill. Kay returns alone from her search for Mac's father, Brock Reynolds (Beau Kazer), in India, where he is a missionary. Shortly afterward, Kay receives a call that Brock is presumed dead. Mackenzie, dejected by her father's "death", goes missing, while Mac's new friends Billy and his friend Raul (David Lago), search for her. Mac shows up at Crimson Lights Coffeehouse and meets Nina McNeil (Tricia Cast), and Nina persuades her to stay the night with her. The next morning Mackenzie is gone when Nina returns with Billy and Raul. Mackenzie returns to the Estate to get her things, intending to leave town, when her father walks in and they are united. Raul and Mackenzie become close while Billy looks on with jealousy, dealing with his own feelings for Mac, to which Mac is clueless. One evening J.T. (Thad Luckinbill) invites everyone to a party at a house that he is "house-sitting". Raul arrives in time to save his best friend Billy's life when he suffers alcohol poisoning and collapses in the snow. Neither Brittany (Lauren Woodland) nor J.T. are willing to call 911 and get themselves in trouble. Mac, who is not getting along with Billy at the time, stays at his bedside and prays that he will pull through. At Junior Prom, Billy and Brittany are expected to be crowned King and Queen. When the votes are counted, Billy and Mac are crowned instead. Only then when they dance together at the prom do they realize their feelings for each other. Jill notices too, and is horrified to realize that her son could be in love with Kay's granddaughter. Billy arrives at the Chancellor Estate later and he and Mac tell each other how they feel. They kiss. Jill begins threatening to find runaway Mac's mother Amanda if she becomes involved with Billy, so Mac and Billy begin meeting in secret in the Abbott children's old playhouse. He gives her a ring as a token of affection. Raul and Mac break things off with each other and he moves on with Rianna Miner (Alexis Thorpe). Billy, Brittany, Raul and Rianna are chosen as the Glow by Jabot Kids as a promotion for the new Jabot teen line. Mac assists Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) in running the website featuring the kids. Brittany discovers that her boyfriend Billy is involved with Mac and arranges for Mac to walk in on her and Billy "making love." Billy has been drugged and Brittany is faking it, but Mac believes what she sees and is heartbroken. Billy tries to defend himself, but can not remember what happened. J.T. eventually spills that it was setup for Mac to see, but no one realized that Billy was drugged. Brittany is hurt, but eventually takes Billy back. Mac and Billy are drawn to each other again, but it is not until Jack (Peter Bergman) arranges for Billy and Mac to be trapped in an elevator at Jabot that they realize they still love each other. Although Billy does his best to be a deter Mac for her own good, they eventually reconcile and become a couple again. Jill makes peace with their union, when she realizes that compared to Brittany, Mac is the lesser of two evils. Afraid that Amanda will show up in Genoa City and take Mac back, Katherine petitions and is awarded legal custody of Mac, which eases Mac's fears of discovery, and she agrees to join the on-screen Glow By Jabot Kids. When Amanda does show up, Mac rebuffs her and sends her away. However, Amanda has divorced and run away from her husband Ralph too, and is living at the same homeless shelter where Mac and her father are volunteers. With her boyfriend Billy's help, Mac and her mother begin accepting each other in their lives again. Things go well for Billy and Mackenzie for several months. He helps her admit that she has run away from St. Louis because her stepfather Ralph had molested her, and her mother would not believe it. After the holidays, Billy realizes that he is ready for more from his relationship with Mac. When he shares his feelings with her, he tries to avoid pressuring her, but can not accept her insistence that she is not ready and wants to wait. As a result, the two of them break up. They get over the trauma and become friends. Then Ralph (Daniel Quinn) shows up in Genoa City and begins stalking Mac. He coerces Amanda into helping him steal from the Chancellor Estate. Amanda lets him into the mansion while everyone is at the prom, but Mac returns home unexpectedly and much to her horror, is met by Ralph. Billy arrives on the scene as Ralph is about to rape Mac, and whacks Ralph over the head with a fireplace poker. Thinking that he has killed Ralph, Billy takes Mac to hide out in their special place, the old Abbott playhouse. Believing they are doomed, Billy and Mac realizes they still love each other. Ralph kidnaps Kay after she returns from chaperoning at the prom, and ties her up in a motel room. Ralph, disguised as a police officer, talks Raul into telling him places where he might find Billy and Mac. Meanwhile, Larry Warton (David "Shark" Fralick) finds and rescues Kay. Ralph shows up at the playhouse, too late, but finds them at a campsite where Raul and Billy used to play as kids. Ralph knocks out Billy by whacking him over the head with a rock and grabs Mac, but Larry shows up in time to rescue her. Larry and Ralph fought, and just before the police arrive, both end up going over a cliff to the lakeshore below. The next morning Ralph awakes and tries to kill an unconscious Larry with a rock. Scared away by the arrival of the police, Ralph disappears into the bushes. Larry is recovered with minor injuries and major thanks from Billy's mother Jill for saving her son's life. Because Jill has video evidence that Amanda has stolen her jewels, and after nearly gotten both her own daughter and Jill's son killed, Amanda agrees to leave town if Jill drops the charges.the second actress to play the role]]After all he went through that Summer, Billy decides he needs to do more with his life than go to college, so he leaves for Louisiana to help Mac's father, Brock, build houses for the poor. He and his mother Jill share a tearful parting although Jill feels he is making a mistake. Mac and Billy part tearfully as well, declaring their love and promising each other this is not the end of them. Mac leaves Genoa City that fall to attend Northwestern University. Both Billy (Ryan Brown) and Mac return to Genoa City for Christmas, and decide to attend GCU and now share a loft apartment with Raul and Brittany. By Spring, Billy has proposed and Mac and Billy are to be married with Raul Guittierez as best man and Colleen Carlton (Lyndsy Fonseca) as maid of honor. But with the reveal that Kay and Jill are mother and daughter, they realize they are cousins. Mac and Billy both leave town on their own, devastated by the news. Mac returns to Genoa City after spending time in the Southwestern US helping out teaching kindergarten and preschool children on an Indian reservation. Her grandmother Katherine, who has fallen off the wagon, is thrilled to see her. Mac finds it difficult to live in the same house as a drunken Katherine and Jill, who hated her, so she moves back into the loft apartment with J.T., Brittany and Raul. Victor Newman (Eric Braeden), as part of his community service sentence for commercial bribery is restoring an old building into a recreation center in a seedy part of town. He hires Mac as his supervisor on the project. Twenty one year old Mac begins to get close with Daniel Romalotti (Michael Graziadei), who has a similar parentless background. But a jealous J.T. is only too glad to spill Daniel's secret that he was only 16 to Mac, and Mac calls it quits. Mac convinces J.T. that he really loves Brittany, but he is not able to tell her before Brittany marries Bobby Marsino (John Enos III), so he reverts to his playboy past. Mac is able to get troubled Kevin Fisher (Greg Rikaart) to open up to her, and convinces him to go to a psychiatrist. Kevin appears to be learning how to deal with his past and handle it well when he realizes that Mac is not interested him as more than a friend. Meanwhile, Mac and J.T. get closer, and she loses her virginity to him. But in an intricate plot to keep the mob away from Brittany and her unborn baby, they set it up to look like JT is the father, and Bobby and Brittany stage a split. Mac is not included in the plot for her safety, and this revelation leaves her reeling. Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott) begins nosing around and uncovers the plot, ending up being kidnapped by Vinny Trabuco's (Joe Maruzzo) goon, Luca (Marcus LaVoi). Paul (Doug Davidson), Victor, and Bobby rescued Nikki while J.T. takes a distraught Brittany to the Newman Ranch. Luckily Mac shows up as Brittany goes into labor, and Mac delivers the two-month-premature baby, Joshua. Vinny, Angelo (Angelo Tiffe) and Luca end up in jail, Brittany and the baby in the hospital, and Bobby turn over his evidence on the mob and goes into the witness protection program, leaving Brittany and Joshua behind. J.T. confesses to Mac this is all a hoax, that he really loves her, but Mac is reluctant to trust him again. Kay convinces J.T., Brittany and her baby to come and live at the Chancellor Estate with Mac, as it will be the most secure for all of them. Months go by, and finally Brittany share a short visit with the heavily-guarded Bobby. Not long afterward, she receives word that Bobby has been killed by a hit-and-run driver. Brittany is devastated, and she and Joshua end up moving to New York City with her parents. Mac and J.T. has since moved into the loft apartment with roommates Kevin Fisher and Scott Grainger (Blair Redford). Kevin becomes close friends with Mac again, and they decide to go into business together. They convince Nick (Joshua Morrow) and Sharon (Sharon Case) to sell Crimson Lights and they run it together. Around the time Colleen returns to Genoa City intent on making her jealous, Mac discovered she is pregnant with J.T.'s baby. She can not bring herself to tell him, but she tells Kay and Kevin. It is not until she miscarries that J.T. finds out and is livid that she did not tell him and confided in Kevin instead, J.T. has a one night stand with Victoria Newman (Amelia Heinle). Mac and J.T. break up and Mac moves out of the loft and back into the Chancellor Estate. She is getting closer and closer to Kevin, before suddenly taking off back to the Indian reservation. Mac later returns to tell Kevin she was going to go to New Orleans to work with her father Brock and signs a power of attorney over to Kevin for the coffee house. On November 14, 2008, Mackenzie's father, Brock mentions that Mac can not make it to Katherine's funeral because she is working at a relief organization in Darfur.